Requiem
by Hatsu Yukiya
Summary: A killer stands among the bodies of her victims, weeping for her loss.


Blood soaked the ground surrounding the girl, seeping in between her toes and warming her bare feet. The smell of dead, rank bodies filled the air, nearly choking her with their pungent odor. Crushed, broken corpses littered the ground, the sight of them bringing the girl to tears.

How had it come to this?

Just a week before, they were so happy. They went to school, they played, they had club…they were friends. They trusted each other. Now that trust was as dead as their hearts, and it was entirely the girl's fault. She looked down at her hands, at the knife which she so mercilessly drove through the bodies of her best friends, and choked back vomit.

What had she done?

Keiichi's dead eyes stared up at her, along with the three others. What had they done to deserve this? Who decided they were to die? The knife clattered to the floor and the girl shook, screaming their names individually. She dropped to her knees and shook their bodies, hoping by some miracle they survived, that they would recover and forgive her and things would go back to the way they were, before the Watanagashi festival.

That was where it all started, of course, just like the rumors said. Every year on festival night, Oyashiro-sama demanded a sacrifice. One died and one went missing, just as was tradition. It was certainly not a new occurrence to the occupants of Hinamizawa village. Just like the rest of them, the girl knew the stories. She knew about the dam construction, the Hojos, the shrine keepers. She knew the history of the village as well. Every villager had demon blood running in their veins, and the girl was no exception. This night made _that_ abundantly clear.

And Oyashiro-sama got his sacrifice. Tomitake and Takano made certain of that. Their corpses had been identified without a problem, after all.

The days after the festival, however, was where things began to go awry. Since the discovery of the bodies of Jirou Tomitake and Miyo Takano, the girl had felt unsettled. Like she was next, and as though she was being followed. When she walked, she heard a person walking behind her, matching her footsteps. When she turned around, there was nobody there.

Eventually, the unsettled feeling turned to outright paranoia. She took to carrying a knife around, feeling a certain sort of comfort in the blade. It would protect her. From what, she didn't know. Whatever killed the last five sacrifices, she supposed. Looking back, it was only a matter of time before she began to suspect her friends. In her mind, everything they said or did seemed to link them to the murders; they all had a motive, as well as the means.

This meant, naturally, it would be best to clear the village of this evil, so Hinamizawa could experience their peaceful festival without fear of bringing down Oyashiro-sama's wrath.

And so, when the four of her friends came to her house with false concern in their eyes, she turned her knife on them with the intent of exorcising the demons that dwelled in their bodies.

_Give them back!_ She screamed. _You can't have them!_ And they fell, one by one, crying and pleading, reaching out.

_Murderers!_

Now she stood in their pools of lifeblood, wondering how she ever could have suspected them, why she would ever think of harming the people she cared about most in the world. She bit back a sob. The unshed tears slipped down her throat, causing it to feel abrasive and itchy. She scratched at it desperately.

It itched so, so badly.

She clawed at her neck, the feeling getting worse with each stroke of her fingernails. Maggots seemed to pour from the open wounds, wriggling around in the gabs between her fingers. Terrified, the girl stood and stumbled a few steps, tripping slightly over the outstretched arm of one of the corpses before halting suddenly.

There was one extra footstep.

"Who's there?" she called out weakly, her voice hoarse from the blood rising in the back of her mouth. There was no answer. She scratched harder. It hurt, each time she drew her nails down her neck in a futile attempt to stop the feeling of maggots crawling under her skin, but she couldn't stop.

Her fingers dug deeper, drawing blood. It flowed out in a steady stream, and she couldn't bring herself to cease the painful scratching. Spots appeared in her vision and suddenly she found herself collapsed on the floor, face pressed against the cold surface and crimson blood staining the ends of her hair. The glassy eyes of her friends bore into her own.

"I'm sorry," she gasped finally, barely able to hear her own rough voice.

From the way it sounded, she wasn't the only one apologizing. A light, feminine voice seemed to be echoing her words with intense sorrow, but how was that possible? She had killed everyone in the room, and nobody else had come in.

Unless the sixth person was there from the beginning, remaining unseen?

The constant repetitions, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…" were the last things Rena Ryugu heard as the world went black.

**A/N:**

**I wanted the subject to be anonymous until the very end, which is why Rena used a knife to kill and not her cleaver; it would be too distinctive. And the same thing never happens twice in any given Hinamizawa, right? She wouldn't constantly use her cleaver, I think.**

**Thanks for reading and please review.**


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